Katherine's Coffeehouse

Trigger warning. (Suicide, self harm. ) **If you are in crisis or think you might be, PLEASE call or text 988. Or chat at 988lifeline.org. Note: I am not in crisis.

It is no way to start the day, one pent up dog going for the neck of another,

I am sitting in a folding chair, cheap paper plate dappled with prescriptions, writing on a $400 laptop connected to a hotspot, watching the timer as megabytes run out.

They say you can’t go home again. But that is if you don’t have a home,

I am back to believing nothing is ever one thing— that in itself a contradiction,

I used to be a cheerleader. I know. I can hardly believe it myself.

Upon finding an old cemetery Some of these stones are small and unmarked— it must have been a family plot—yet

I have learned to name the ghosts. Let’s call this one Freddie— no particular reason or relation to Freddie Mercury, though I do love a good Queen, especially

And if you want to know why I keep telling the story, it is because someone else might have lived it,

The working theory is this: If we rage at something we are not, we become what we fling ourselves against, protecting our bodies